by Jodi Thomas
Reagan took one look and fought the urge to slide under the table.
The waitress just smiled at him as if he were cute as a newborn pit bull.
“Edith!” he yelled from the doorway. “Get a thermos of coffee ready. I’ll be back for it.” He plowed his hand through jet-black hair and shoved his hat down hard as if about to face a storm.
The Blue Moon Diner door slammed closed and he was gone.
“Who was that?” Reagan asked, figuring this would be the first name on her list of people to avoid.
Edith laughed. “That’s Hank Matheson. He’s headed across the street to Buffalo Bar and Grill to break up a fight.” The waitress laughed. “It’s Saturday night and Alex McAllen is either passed out drunk or starting a brawl. One of the bartenders calls Hank every time to come get her before she gets in too much trouble.”
“Why don’t they just call the police?”
Edith giggled. “You have been gone a long time. Alexandra McAllen has been the sheriff for three years. Barely had time to accept her master’s in criminal justice down at Sam Houston State before she pinned on the badge.”
Reagan smiled and quoted a line from the Harmony paper she kept. “Three families settled in to work at the Ely Trading Post in 1887: the Trumans, the Mathesons, and the McAllens. When old Harmon Ely died, he left a third of his land to each family and together they founded Harmony.”
“Good.” Edith smiled. “You do know your history. Most folks driving by think we was named Harmony after a mood, but in truth, folks just got tired of calling the town Harmon Ely and shortened it to one word. Kind of a private joke for locals, being the old man was as mean as a two-headed snake on a hot rock.”
Edith stood and moved around a long counter to make the thermos. “If you know that much, you also know the three families have never gotten along.”
“But Hank’s helping Alex, and she’s a McAllen.”
Edith wobbled her head so far from side to side she almost tapped her shoulders. “Yeah, and she’ll hate him for saving her in the morning. Once she got so mad he rescued her that she tried to get him fired as the town’s volunteer fire chief. When that didn’t work, because it’s impossible to fire someone who’s not paid in the first place, she blacked his eye with a wild punch.”
“And he still goes into that bar on a Saturday night to save her?”
Edith screwed on the top of the thermos. “I guess he figures it’s the best way to irritate her.”
A scream and a string of swear words could be heard from outside.
“That’ll be Alex.” Edith rushed to the door.
Reagan watched through the window as the waitress hurried out with the thermos to give to Hank. He was shoving a woman, fighting and kicking, into the passenger side of a Dodge Ram.
He slammed the door and climbed in on the driver’s side.
When he opened the window to accept the thermos from Edith, the wild woman he’d trapped managed to open the door and was halfway out before Hank jerked her back.
Edith didn’t seem concerned. She just nodded at Hank and hurried back toward the diner.
Two feet inside, she ordered, “Truman, if you want a ride out to your great-uncle Jeremiah’s place, Hank said hop in and he’ll take you. He’s headed that way anyway.”
It took Reagan a moment to figure out who Edith was yelling at. Then she remembered. She was a Truman. She’d been one for at least ten minutes now.
“Great,” she said, and pulled her pack out from under the table. She couldn’t stay here; it would look strange. Maybe she’d just hop out of the truck and find somewhere to sleep until morning. Down the road seemed as good as any place to go.
Edith walked her out and held her pack as she climbed into the bed of Hank’s huge pickup truck. Reagan settled in between saddles and serious-looking riding gear.
She noticed that Alex, looking tall and blond, sat perfectly still in the passenger seat, but Hank was swearing that he’d handcuff the sheriff if she tried to get out again. Reagan wasn’t sure either of them even noticed her hitching a ride.
She leaned toward Edith. “Doesn’t anyone think they’re a little strange?”
Edith frowned and looked at them, then shook her head. “He’s the only one brave enough to stand up to her when she’s had a few, and she’s the best sheriff we’ve had in forty years. Besides—”
Hank threw the truck into drive and roared down the road before Edith finished.
Reagan leaned back on one of the saddles and tried to figure out the couple yelling at each other just beyond the back window. Somewhere in an old paper she remembered reading that a McAllen had died in the line of duty. A highway patrolman maybe, or a marshal. Or maybe, she guessed, the last sheriff of Harmony.
By the time Hank turned off on the farm-to-market road, he had to be going eighty. He hit the first pothole so hard Reagan almost bounced out of the truck bed. Three minutes later he was braking and she was rolling around in the back like the last pumpkin on the way to market.
He was out of the cab before she could settle enough to sit up.
“Sorry, kid,” he said as he offered her a hand down. “Alex is threatening to throw up. I can’t waste any time.”
Reagan grabbed the strap of her pack and let him lift her down. He couldn’t be much over thirty, but the worried tone in his voice made him seem older. When she put her hand on his shoulder climbing out, he felt solid as rock.
“It’s all right. I understand. Thanks for the ride.” She thanked her stars that Jeremiah’s house wasn’t farther from town.
“Will you be all right from here on?” Hank asked. “The old man’s house is a hundred yards up that dirt road. I’d turn in there, but he’s left holes wide enough to swallow the truck.”
“I’ll be fine.” Reagan fought to keep her voice from shaking. The shady lane he pointed to looked like it could easily make it onto the “Top Ten Most Likely Places to Get Murdered” list.
Hank reached into a toolbox and pulled out a flashlight. “You can leave this at the diner or the fire station next time you’re in town.” He hesitated, then added, “Good luck with the old man.”
Reagan took the flashlight. She didn’t want to go on down the road, but she wasn’t about to climb into the bed of Hank’s truck again. One more mile and she would have had brain damage for sure.
They both heard someone vomiting.
Hank groaned and climbed back into the vehicle. He was gone before Reagan could figure out how to turn on the light.
Chapter 2
HANK DIDN’T SAY A WORD AS ALEXANDRA THREW UP INTO his best Stetson while he drove across the bridge and onto McAllen land.
She lived in a cabin on the north rim of a small canyon when she wasn’t sleeping at the office. McAllen land wasn’t fit to farm, but when her big brother, Warren, had been alive, he’d run cattle. Alex and her kid brother, Noah, pretty much let the cattle run wild now. She was too busy in town, and Noah still had a few years of high school before he could even think about being a rancher.
The cabin that Alex now called home had been used as a line shack years before and converted to livable by her big brother. No one who hadn’t been to the place could have found it in the daylight, much less in the dark, and of course, she hadn’t bothered to leave a light on.
Hank pulled up to the long porch and left his brights on. Carrying her through the unlocked door, he flipped on the living room switch with his elbow. In mud-covered boots, he stomped straight to the bathroom. Without a word, he dumped her in the tub and turned on the cold water, then walked out to clean up the cab of his truck before the smell of vomit sank into the upholstery.
By the time he’d finished and walked back inside, Alex was wrapped in a robe on the couch, her face resting atop her knees. Her beautiful blond hair now hung like wet roots about her head.
“Want a fire? I could bring in some wood. It’s getting cold.”
She didn’t answer.
“You can’t keep doing
this, Alex.” He’d sworn he wouldn’t argue or preach at her again, but she made him so angry. “What if that trucker had taken you out of Buffalo’s?” Half the drunks in the place wouldn’t have noticed if she’d been screaming and the other half wouldn’t have challenged the guy.
“I wasn’t going with him. I was just having fun. I would have stopped it without you.”
“Another drink and you might not have been able to stop it.”
“I could have.” She sounded tired. “And if I hadn’t or couldn’t, what difference would it have made? I was off duty. I wasn’t the sheriff. I was just a woman looking to get picked up. Last I heard, that wasn’t a crime.” She glared at him. “Or any of your business, for that matter.”
He fought down words he knew he’d regret. “You want a cup of coffee?” he asked after a moment.
“No,” she said. “I’m going to bed.” She walked to the bedroom door. “Alone, thanks to you, Hank.”
He glared at her.
She turned and added, “How long does Warren have to be dead before you stop being my brother’s best friend and let me live my own life?”
“Screw up your own life, you mean.”
“Whatever.” She waved a hand. “I don’t care what you think anymore. I do my job all week. I should be able to do whatever I want on my own time.”
He didn’t argue. Grabbing a blanket, he headed for the couch.
“You’re spending the night again, aren’t you? Guarding over me so I don’t break out and go back to town.”
“Something like that.” He tugged off one boot and tossed it toward the doormat.
“Well, you’d better be gone by morning or I swear I’ll arrest you for breaking and entering.” She slammed the bedroom door so hard it echoed off the rafters.
Hank barely noticed. It had been the way she ended every conversation they’d had since her brother died. Warren had been her hero, her big brother, the only father she claimed, but Warren had also been Hank’s best friend. Alex couldn’t seem to look at him without remembering Warren, and he couldn’t look at her without remembering his promise to a friend.
When Warren died, something had shattered in Alex. She’d turned all her energy, all her talents, all her soul into doing her job better than anyone else ever had. Except for one tiny part of her time. Her Saturday nights, she’d turned into her own brand of hell. The wound to her heart hadn’t healed, but festered with time.
And Hank had fallen right into the fire with her. He didn’t allow himself one drink, one solid night’s sleep on the weekends. Somehow when Warren died, Hank had become Alex’s guardian. He’d butted into her life, where he knew he wasn’t welcome, and they’d been slugging it out with neither one of them having any idea of how to stop.
Hank sank down and spoke to the closed door. “The next time you want to sleep with an idiot, Alex, all you’ve got to do is open that door. There’s one waiting right here on your couch.”
Chapter 3
REAGAN WALKED INTO THE BEAM OF LIGHT FROM THE borrowed flashlight, feeling like Indiana Jones. Huge old evergreens permanently bent by the wind blackened most of the path. An ancient house, with half the windows boarded up, waited at the end like a troublesome shadow in a horror film.
Not one light flickered from the direction of the house. Old Jeremiah was probably dead, she thought. Probably had been for weeks, but he was so mean no one bothered to come check.
Miss Beverly never talked about her brother, other than to say he would drive a saint to swear. He’d served in World War II and brought his army ways home with him when he returned. Beverly said once that he hated farming but, as far as she knew, he’d never tried anything else after the war. “Some folks,” she’d said, “had rather stick with what they can complain about than wander off into something new that they might enjoy.”
When Beverly Truman’s divorced son had died of lung cancer, she’d decided she’d rather move up near Oklahoma City, where she knew no one, than have to move back in with her brother, Jeremiah.
Reagan remembered that Beverly had mentioned once that Jeremiah collected something, but she couldn’t remember what. Probably skeletal remains of teenagers.
When she got out of the line of trees, Reagan was surprised by the yard around the house. It seemed orderly, the kind of stiff, planned arrangements of an institution, not a home. She spotted several chairs and tables turned in different directions, all facing away from the house, and a hammock stretched across an opening between two trees. Both ends of the porch drooped, making the place appear to frown. Rusty wind chimes clanked in the midnight breeze.
The hammock looked as safe a place to sleep as any. She wasn’t about to knock on the door and wake up the old man. A blanket she found in the hammock smelled of rain, but nothing else. Reagan wrapped it around her and crawled in with her pack cuddled against her. She’d figure out what to do in the morning. Right now, she needed sleep.
Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Harmony, I’m home.”
Dreams drifted in her thoughts as they always did. She was walking through a house trying to find her room, but every night, every dream, it was a different house. Some big, some small, some with secret turns and hiding places, but in one way they were all the same. None seemed to have a room for her.
She’d just cuddled into a corner somewhere in her dream when a bright light woke her. Reagan opened one eye and watched the sun spread across an open field that shone between the tree branches. The ground looked pink, then violet, then golden. The sunrise was so bright it sparkled white and, for a moment, the light turned the earth to a shining lake of silver.
Reagan smiled. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
She heard a clank and turned to see an old man sitting in a chair five feet away. He’d put down his cup and lifted a metal coffeepot that looked like it had been used on open fires since the Civil War and never cleaned.
“You want some coffee before you start explaining what you’re doing on my land, kid?”
His hands were big, and tiny scars flashed white against his tanned skin. He could have been eighty or a hundred. Once some people get so old, they kind of fossilize.
“Yes, I’d like some coffee . . . please.” She almost tumbled out of the hammock trying to sit up.
When her feet were planted firmly on the ground, she walked close enough to him to take the cup and took a seat in the other metal lawn chair facing the sunrise. It was so rusty she couldn’t make out what the original color had been.
The sun was a ball now, sitting on the horizon, and the morning pushed all shadows away.
The old man watched the dawn and didn’t seem too interested in her. He also didn’t seem worried or afraid she might try to rob him. Maybe the seventy-pound German shepherd at his side accounted for some of that. The dog watched her as if he thought she might be a take-out breakfast.
“You got the Truman nose,” Reagan finally said.
“I’ve been told that before. It’s the only nose I got and I’m a Truman, so ain’t no surprise to me that I got a Truman nose. You come all the way out here to tell me that?”
“No,” she answered, wondering what she could tell him. “I hadn’t planned to come out at all. I was just talking to Edith at the diner and she asked some guy named Hank to give me a lift out here. I guess she thought because my name is Truman that I might be welcome.”
“Well, you ain’t,” Jeremiah said. “I welcome company about the same as I do black mold.”
“I figured that.” Reagan really hadn’t expected the world to change just because she made up a hometown and a last name, and a dead grandmother. “I guess I was just wishing.”
“What were you wishing for?” he asked, not sounding like he cared much what the answer was.
“Oh, I don’t wish for things. I gave up on that years ago. Never got me anywhere.” She drank a long draw on her coffee and added, “If I do anything, it’s reverse wishing.”
He raised a bushy eyebro
w on a face so wrinkled a mosquito would have trouble finding a landing spot.
“You know,” she said, just to talk. She’d never see him again after a few minutes, so she might as well tell him her thoughts. “People are always reverse wishing around me and they don’t even know it. Like them saying, ‘I wish you’d never been born,’ or ‘I wish I didn’t have to take care of you,’ or ‘I wish you’d move on and leave me in peace.’ That’s the only kind of wishing that I’ve ever seen work. So I don’t wish for good things to happen, I just wish the bad things would leave me alone for a while.”
“And if you were doing this reverse wishing, kid, what would you wish for?”
She couldn’t look at him. His eyes were so hard and cold they could have been frozen marbles. She’d be better off to go back to the diner and ask Edith for a job. Maybe she could even find a place to rent a room somewhere and tell everyone she was eighteen. Only problem with that was she was a sixteen-year-old who could pass for twelve. Half the people she met couldn’t even tell if she was a boy or a girl.
“I’d wish, if I were reverse wishing, that I didn’t have to leave this place.”
He was silent for so long, she thought he’d surely died on the spot. Then he said, “You can stay for breakfast, and then I’ll take you back to town. Looks like it might rain today, and I wouldn’t want you falling in a mud hole on my land and suing me.”
Reagan looked at the cloudless sky and decided the old man had floaters in his eyes. Miss Beverly had floaters. She was always swearing there were bugs in her oatmeal.
Jeremiah stood slowly, as if testing to make sure his legs still worked, then walked toward the house. “We’re having eggs.” He didn’t turn around. “Damn chickens keep laying them faster than I can eat them.”
She watched him, not believing he’d invited her to breakfast. Somewhere an ounce of Miss Beverly’s goodness must have been in him. She ran and caught up to him just as he stepped in the side door.
